About L'aut'journal

L'aut'journal

L'aut'journal (ISSN 0833-8965) is a French-language newspaper distributed in Quebec freely and through subscription — the sovereigntist left's monthly since 1984, the "other newspaper" of Quebec's other left. Founded by political scientist and journalist Pierre Dubuc, it advocates Quebec sovereignty, democratic socialism, and feminism, and strongly supports labour unions, from whom it receives most of its funding. With a circulation of 35,000 copies (as of 2004) and a roster of volunteer contributors reading as a who's who of the Quebec left — from Michel Chartrand to Paul Rose to Mario Beaulieu — l'aut'journal is the movement press of the sovereigntist left: the paper the unions fund, the militants write, and the movement reads.

Overview

L'aut'journal publishes monthly in French, covering Quebec politics, the sovereignty movement, labour struggles, social movements, feminism, ecology, and international solidarity from the perspective of the independentist left. Distributed free and by subscription across Quebec, it reaches the sovereigntist movement's activists, the union locals (the CSN, FTQ, and independent unions), the feminist organizations, and the engaged left — the readers who want the independence struggle analyzed from the left, not the centre. The editorial line is explicitly partisan: for independence, for democratic socialism, for feminism, for the unions — the paper of the left wing of the national movement, the voice the corporate press doesn't carry. The ISSN 0833-8965 marks its place in the bibliographic record: four decades of the sovereigntist left's journalism.

History

The paper was founded in 1984 by Pierre Dubuc — political scientist, journalist, and sovereigntist militant, the intellectual who saw the need for the left's own paper — at a moment when the sovereignty movement was regrouping after the 1980 referendum defeat and the Parti québécois government's turn to austerity under René Lévesque's second mandate. The founding reflected the need for an independent left voice within the national movement. The founding reflected the need for an independent left voice within the national movement: neither the PQ's official line (increasingly managerial) nor the corporate press's perspective (increasingly hostile), but the democratic-socialist, feminist, pro-union analysis of the independence struggle — the left's case for sovereignty, the sovereignty movement's left conscience, the argument that independence must serve the workers or serve nothing. The name — l'aut'journal, "the other newspaper" (in joual, Quebec's working-class French) — announced the alternative: the other news, the other perspective, the paper the mainstream wouldn't publish, the journal of the "autre" — the other Quebec.

Through the decades — the Meech Lake and Charlottetown dramas, the 1995 referendum and its heartbreaking near-miss, the PQ's declines and the rise of Québec solidaire, the CAQ era and the sovereignty movement's long winter — l'aut'journal has maintained the left-sovereigntist line: independence as the path to socialism, socialism as the content of independence, feminism as integral to both. The paper's longevity — 40+ years — testifies to the persistence of its readership: the militants who have kept the faith through the movement's winters.

Contributors and Character

Many personalities voluntarily contribute to l'aut'journal — the volunteer model reflecting the movement-press tradition, the paper as collective militant work rather than commercial enterprise, the writers giving their words as militants give their time, the paper belonging to the movement rather than to owners. The contributors have included Élaine Audet, Mario Beaulieu (the Bloc Québécois leader and former Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society president), Roméo Bouchard, André Bouthillier, Michel Chartrand (the legendary union leader, the lion of the Quebec left), Michel Chossudovsky, Paul Cliche, Jean-Claude Germain (the playwright and chronicler), Michel Lapierre, Marc Laviolette, François Parenteau, Paul Rose (of the October Crisis — the FLQ militant turned sovereigntist elder), and Charles Castonguay (the linguist of the language debates) — a roster spanning the sovereigntist left's generations, from the October Crisis militants to the contemporary movement's leaders, from the union halls to the universities. That such figures write for free testifies to the paper's place: l'aut'journal as the movement's common text, the venue where the left talks to itself, the pages where the generations meet.

Funding and Independence

L'aut'journal receives most of its funding from labour unions — the CSN, FTQ, and other centrals supporting the paper that supports their struggles, the institutional solidarity of the Quebec left, the unions investing in the ideas that serve their members. The union funding model gives the paper its independence from commercial advertising (the businesses whose interests the paper challenges) and its accountability to the labour movement: the paper of the unions, for the unions' causes and the broader left's. The free distribution — the paper available without price barrier — reflects the movement logic: the ideas must circulate, the cost borne by the movement's institutions. the subscription base provides the stable core; the union support provides the foundation; the volunteers provide the words.

Coverage and Audience

The paper serves Quebec's sovereigntist left: the independence activists (the party militants, the movement organizers), the union militants (the shop stewards, the local executives, the strikers), the feminists (the women's movement organizations), the social movements (the community groups, the student associations), the students and intellectuals of the left. The coverage spans the sovereignty struggle (the strategies, the debates, the campaigns), the labour movement's battles (the strikes, the negotiations, the anti-austerity fights), the feminist movement (the marches, the policy battles), the ecology (the environmental struggles from the left perspective), the anti-globalization and social-justice causes, and the international solidarities (Palestine, Latin America, the global left). The 35,000-copy circulation (as of 2004) reflects the movement's scale: the thousands of militants and sympathizers who form the sovereigntist left's base, the union members who receive it, the activists who pass it hand to hand. The free distribution ensures the paper reaches beyond the subscribers: the union halls, the demonstrations, the community spaces where the left gathers.

The Movement Press

L'aut'journal belongs to the movement-press tradition: the newspapers created by political movements to speak to their members and the public, sustained by the movement's resources rather than the market's. In Quebec, that tradition includes the union papers, the party organs, the feminist publications — and l'aut'journal, the sovereigntist left's monthly. The movement press serves functions the commercial press cannot: the internal debate (the movement arguing with itself), the mobilization (the calls to action), the memory (the record of struggles), the education (the political formation of militants). L'aut'journal has performed these functions for 40 years: the debate over sovereignty strategies, the mobilizations for strikes and demonstrations, the memory of the movement's battles, the formation of generations of militants. In the age of social media — when the movement's debates happen online, fragmented across platforms — the monthly paper provides what the feed cannot: the sustained argument, the printed record, the collective text that the movement can hold in its hands.

Digital Presence

L'aut'journal maintains an online presence at lautjournal.info ("L'aut'journal sur le Web"), extending the monthly print edition with digital articles, archives, and subscription information. The website carries the paper's journalism to the online left — the militants who read on screens, the diaspora of Quebec sovereigntists beyond the province, the young discovering the movement's press. For Quebec's sovereigntist left, the paper remains the movement's voice: the other newspaper, publishing the other news since 1984 — for independence, democratic socialism, and feminism, the left's case for a free Quebec, the militants' monthly, the other newspaper — l'aut'journal, the journal of the other Quebec, since 1984.